


An entrance somewhere else

by Petra



Category: Life on Mars (UK), Slings & Arrows
Genre: Afterlife, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-28
Updated: 2010-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there's one thing Oliver knows about being dead, it's that he's got a purpose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An entrance somewhere else

  
The last place Oliver expects to wake up after Lear is in an alleyway. It's not Heaven, and it isn't quite awful enough to be Hell.

He stumbles into the theatre he woke up behind--always the theatre, and someday he really will be all the way dead, and that will be a welcome change if and only if there are no more theatres. Or, he will know for certain that he is really all the way dead when there are no more theatres. One or the other.

There is a rehearsal in progress, a bored Mancunian rendition of Romeo and Juliet in 1970's period dress.

Mercutio is Robert, with his charming, slanted smile and the suggestion in his eyes that any second now, he's going to drag Oliver off and have his wicked way with him.

Robert died in '85, you know why, and Oliver was up to his ears in R&amp;J right then, too involved (too in love) to think of making the flight--back, not home--for the service.

Oliver says, "Ten minutes, please," and walks out of the theatre again.

He spent too many years beating that accent out of himself, vowel by consonant, to call Manchester home anymore.

Besides that, he's still dead. He remembers that much.

*

When he has finally stopped shaking, he's outside the police department. There are two men arguing by a brown car, one large and shouting, the other slim and earnest, undercutting him in a voice so low it's nearly a whisper. Oliver watches, thinks of the ways he could use that contrast, that staging.

He's still dead. Nothing to stage here. Not even for Robert.

"There's no bloody connection!" the loud man shouts. "Poison, drowning, stabbing--no connection at all!"

"I'm telling you there is, guv," the quiet man says, earnest and certain. "More than just the notes."

"What is it, then?" The loud man flings out his arm, gesturing with his camel coat like a cape. Classic declamatory technique, Oliver thinks, and hates himself.

The quiet man presses his hands to his forehead, nothing like the Prince of Denmark, and lets them fall. "There's something there. Something I'm missing."

Oliver thinks about going back to the theatre, thinks about seducing Robert--young, vibrant Mercutio--but if there's one thing he knows about being dead, it's that he's got a purpose. Whatever it is. He's entered this scene and he should make the best of it.

He approaches the men from the side of the quiet one while the loud one blusters on. "No location connections, and we've had Chris down in the collator's den for the last however many days, breathing in dust and coming up with nothing after nothing. I'm starting to think we'd have an easier time of it calling the whole damn city in one by one."

"Excuse me, officers," Oliver says, and then blinks at himself. He expected that to be what he's made himself think of as his normal voice, but it sounded for all the world like his father's accent, the man he's never wanted to be.

That gets him one baleful glare and one overly patient look. "We're a bit busy just now," the quiet one says.

"So push off, Mary."

Oliver sighs and folds his arms. "I was merely wondering whether the stabbing victim had also been poisoned."

They look at each other. The quiet one shrugs. "Don't think we did the forensics on it."

"What with the right great hole in the bastard's chest," the loud one says, but there's a thoughtful look in his eye. "Come inside," he says, and pulls out a warrant card in what looks like an entirely automatic gesture: Detective Chief Inspector Hunt.

Oliver takes half a step back. "You can't possibly be arresting me for asking a question."

The quiet one studies his face. "You seem to have information. You'll be helping the police with our inquiries."

That's far past Oliver's cue to run, but he follows them into the station meekly instead. He was never much good at jogging.

*

"One poisoning, one stabbing, two hangings, one drowning victim, another poisoning, and stabbing with poisoning thrice over," Oliver says, counting it off on his fingers. "Do you know what that is, officers?"

Hunt scowls at him from across the interview table, if it is that. "A very bad month."

"An atypical pattern for a serial killer," says the quiet one, who turns out to be Detective Inspector Tyler.

Oliver shakes his head. "The death toll for _Hamlet_."

*

He's right. The forensics come in on the stabbing victim, showing the same poison used as a case earlier in the year.

The two hangings crop up in old files once there's something to look for.

Oliver ends up stuck in the same little room all day, which is quite like being under arrest, but with biscuits and tea. "I didn't do any of it," he tells the nice young officer--Cartwright, maybe--who's keeping an eye on him. "I swear I wasn't even in the city last February."

"Where were you, then?" she asks, her smile not covering up the interrogation.

"Canada," he says, and then reflects that there's no way that's true. According to the files, that was February 1972, when he was nowhere near Canada. Last February, he was dead.

Cartwright raises her eyebrows. "Oh? Doing what?"

Oliver sighs. It aches to think about. "Helping direct a production of the Scottish Play."

She looks blank.

He looks around, crosses his fingers, and says it. "I mean _Macbeth_."

"Oh." Cartwright nods. "There are people who can confirm that, then?"

If Oliver knew how to get in touch with Geoffrey at this remove, he'd do it in a heartbeat just to hear a familiar voice with an accent he's already halfway to forgetting. "Most of the theatres where I worked at the time--" he clears his throat "--can't afford to maintain a telephone line. So you'd have to try it through the mail."

She gives him a piece of paper. "Just you put down their addresses, then, and we'll see to it."

By the time letters get there and back again, something will have changed. Oliver's sure of that.

He starts writing to fill the time.

*

Laertes--if it is Laertes--shows up the next day, after Oliver's spent a night in the cells "for his own safety."

After that, the police have enough evidence to catch the man just before he does in Hamlet.

Tyler comes into the room where they're holding Oliver and hands him a sandwich. "You're free to go, as long as you leave us an address and don't go haring off out of the county, in case you come up with anything else that'll help us tighten up the case."

Oliver sighs and stands up, stretching his legs. "I don't have anywhere to go," he admits. "I'm dead."

Tyler looks at him, focusing on his face as though he's given an important clue. "Are you?"

"Yes." Oliver stares at him, expecting an accusation of madness.

He smiles, suddenly and brightly. "So am I."

Oliver pinches the bridge of his nose. "I was hit by a truck. Years ago, now."

Tyler thumps him on the shoulder companionably. "It was a car got me, the first time. Come on, the lads are celebrating catching the bastard, and you've been a great help. I'll buy you a drink."

It sounds like a chat-up line gone terribly wrong. "You're not--" Oliver lowers his voice, mindful of the era and that it would be a horrible thing to experience post-mortem gay-bashing. "You're not propositioning me, are you?"

There is a pause where Oliver is certain he's about to be punched, but Tyler gives him a look that makes him shiver instead.

Then he shakes his head. "Sorry, you're not my type. Come along anyway."

Oliver sighs and wonders what happened to that fleeting rehearsal he walked out of. If he looks, he can probably find Robert again. "One drink," he says, as he has said so many times before, and knows it is as much of a lie as ever.

When he falls asleep on the sticky table in the pub, he does not wake up there again.


End file.
